Laura McAtackney
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lauramca.bsky.social
Laura McAtackney
@lauramca.bsky.social

Irish Academic, archaeologist, heritage, memory, creative at UC Cork. Interest in post/conflict and post/colonial contexts inc fieldwork in Ireland and Caribbean.

History 22%
Political science 20%

A little too much cronyism and expecting to trust ppl to do the right thing when they clearly have no sense what that is.

Indeed, all this needs is for us all to decide we are perfectly ethical and we just need to be trusted re what we decide to disclose or not. don’t know what the problem is?!

Haha, he’s just a gift ‘i asked myself, is what i’m doing legal?’. I mean, we are many kilometers passed ‘ethical’ when you’re trying to walk the line with that one!

I love when case-studies come up during my teaching that are just too perfect. Nearing the end of a course on ethical dilemmas in anthropology and we have Ivan Yates fudging the difference between legal and ethical. Chefs kiss! www.rte.ie/news/politic...
Client confidentiality reason for non-disclosure - Yates
Ivan Yates has said client confidentiality was the reason he did not disclose the fact that he gave media training to Fianna Fáil presidential candidate Jim Gavin.
www.rte.ie

Reposted by Laura McAtackney

New documentary review on the site by @brian-hanley.bsky.social on the RTE Documentary NORAID, Irish America and the Troubles. www.theirishstory.com/2025/11/10/d...

Reposted by Laura McAtackney

Institutional capture of the BBC: Michael Prescott former political editor of the Murdoch Sunday Times - so you can guess his politics - alleges the following. All the current far right obsessions in bullet points. Laughable and totally rancid

Academic book publishers pre-advertising ‘black friday’ deals on social media. Grim.
In yet another addition of willful ignorance by the British tabloid press, the cyclical poppy furore. It is incredible it has to be explained to adults that there is nothing apolitical about remembering war and especially how it is used in the contemporary. www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer...
Katie McCabe takes clear poppy stance as she follows in McClean's footsteps
Katie McCabe follows in the footsteps of James McClean by not wearing the poppy while in action for Arsenal.
www.irishmirror.ie

absolutely

It’s an odd one, i worked the elections in the north for years and we kept spoiled votes and they were counted (the text was not recorded) but it wasn’t announced with the tallies afaik?! But given the social media campaign it became more prominent this time.

Absolutely, the mainstream media and politicians continue to be abysmal at confronting an increasingly emboldened far right and seem to be happy just allowing their BS claims. I’m delighted with what looks like a landslide for Connolly but this ability to so easily claim a false narrative is bad.

While it was a less than ideal Presidential campaign - with only two candidates still running in the end - it’s useful to see the names and bios behind the ‘spoil your vote’ campaign. Mainly a lot of failed politicians, right wing agitators and social conservatives. www.rte.ie/news/primeti...
Who was behind the 'Spoil The Vote' campaign?
A network of businesspeople and online commentators campaigned for voters to spoil their ballots as a form of protest. Here's who they are — and how they became part of the movement
www.rte.ie

Beautified by the ultimate warrior
woman accessory xxx

You’re just right, everything about the imposed legacy act and its associated measures are ethically indefensible. There is no sustainable peace without transparency.

And mostly absolutely no understanding as to what that means, no one is going to record and analyze the mad witterings they decide to write on the ballot paper. Just a waste of their democratic privilege.

I’ve not been as excited about an election in a long time!

Heading to the polling station to vote for @catherinegalway.bsky.social - after y’day horror with the Soldier F trial Ive put on my best clothes and am representing the North in my person and in my gorgeous @saraoneill.bsky.social scarf!

So many posts y’day let me hold onto to some semblance of sanity, it’s like a constant retraumatizing groundhog day.

Unresolved pasts never really stay there, they continue to impact the present and no matter how much the WM govt want to. Imposing ‘legacy’ acts cannot achieve closure when the main aim is to stop revealing the degree of British statement involvement in a dirty war.

It’s the hope that can get to you but we need to remember the WM govt has imposed ‘legacy’ on our past and in reality that stifles our ability to achieve any semblance of positive peace in the present. Across communities.

These wouldn’t the be same academics who believe their access to British archives so they can write their wee official histories are worth more than justice, by any chance?

absolutely exhausting, often with little to no knowledge of what any ‘community’ needs or wants (especially those within it who are not open to being just incorporated into the current set up).

Thanks Colin, it does make a difference hearing that unconnected people recognize the complete lack of justice in the British govt yet again looking after its own. I’m sure there is a lot we don’t know but at least there is no dispute on where wrong lies.

If anything i think attitudes are reversing, people are so used to northern nationalists just having resilience and awaiting whatever change is bestowed on us that we are overlooked and expected to just accept the crumbs. It’s so retraumatizing.

Yes, it’s retraumatizing to continue being overlooked. I’ve been reading about Judith Butler’s concept of grievability, which she coined after 9/11. For states to justify their actions they must focus on the worth of some - eg British soldiers - and make the deaths of others - us - ungrievable.

As someone from the North living the South, it can feel b othering that so much of the election talk is about appealing to Northern unionists and virtually no recognition of the ongoing trauma inflicted on Northern nationalists. Yet another day in the British state being denied justice.
Some people on this island are voting to elect their head of state
Others are digesting the fact that their state deployed paratroopers as peacekeepers - an oxymoron in itself, who killed children in broad daylight & then frustrated justice to the point that it was impossible. Such a stark contrast

Reposted by Laura McAtackney

Some people on this island are voting to elect their head of state
Others are digesting the fact that their state deployed paratroopers as peacekeepers - an oxymoron in itself, who killed children in broad daylight & then frustrated justice to the point that it was impossible. Such a stark contrast

Structural obstacles - a state allows their forces to act with impunity, including murdering civilians, dehumanizes the dead so they are presented as culpable in their own deaths, and when they eventually accept the soldiers’ roles try to prevent them from being held accountable for their crimes.

Soldier F found not guilty of murder on Bloody Sunday. What can one expect when the British state doesn’t adequately investigate at the time, blames the dead for their murders, drags out justice processes for >50 years and then imposes a legacy act. Ensures this outcome www.rte.ie/news/ulster/...
Soldier F cleared of two murders on Bloody Sunday
A former British paratrooper has been found not guilty at Belfast Crown Court of committing two murders and five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972.
www.rte.ie

Reposted by Laura McAtackney

You can read the full transcript of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry for the two days for which Soldier F was questioned with these two links:

webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/201010...

webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/201010...
UK Government Web Archive
This Page is [ARCHIVED CONTENT] and shows what the site page http://report.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org/transcripts/Archive/Ts375.htm looked like on 17 Oct 2010 at 06:24:23
webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk